News Broadcasting
NBC’s upcoming Martha Stewart series gets enthusiastic response
MUMBAI: Just how strong a draw Martha Stewart is on American television can be gauged by this piece of news.
NBC Universal Domestic Television Distribution claims to have sold its upcoming daily series with Martha Stewart in more than 60 per cent of the US television market as a part of its national syndication drive. The series goes on air later this year.
As reported earlier by Indiantelevision.com, Stewart has teamed up with the reality TV guru Mark Burnett for a new daily series.
The hour-long show will be taped live with a studio audience. Its USP is a new programming format that allows audience members and special guests to participate and interact with Martha.
Viewers will learn new ways to enhance their lives as audience members and even celebrity guests help Martha unveil great ideas and new projects — right from cooking and entertaining to decorating and home renovating, and much more. The segments will be engaging, illuminating and fun, appealing to a broad audience of viewers.
The series has been sold on stations from a number of US broadcast station groups, including Hearst-Argyle, Gannett, Scripps Howard, Belo, Freedom, CBS, Young, Clear Channel, Meredith and Milwaukee Journal.
NBC Universal Domestic Television Distribution president Barry Wallach said, “The station community is very excited about Martha’s return to daytime television in the fall of 2005. With the first half of the US sales now completed, Martha’s return has been enthusiastically endorsed by top stations all across the country, ensuring an unsurpassed launching pad.”
News Broadcasting
News TV viewership jumps 33 per cent as West Asia war draws audiences
BARC Week 8 data shows news share rising to 8 per cent despite T20 World Cup
NEW DELHI:Â Even as individual television news channel ratings remain under a temporary pause, the genre itself is seeing a clear surge in audience attention.
According to the latest data from Broadcast Audience Research Council India, television news recorded a 33 per cent jump in genre share in Week 8 of 2026, covering February 28 to March 6.
The news genre accounted for 8 per cent of total television viewership during the week, up from 6 per cent the previous week. The spike in attention coincided with escalating geopolitical tensions involving the United States, Israel and Iran, which have kept global headlines firmly fixed on West Asia.
The rise is notable because it came at a time when cricket was dominating television screens. The high-stakes stages of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, including the Super 8 fixtures and semi-finals, were being broadcast during the same period.
Despite the cricket frenzy, viewers appeared to be toggling between sport and global affairs, boosting the overall share of news programming.
The surge in genre share comes even as the government has enforced a one-month pause on publishing ratings for individual news channels. The move followed regulatory scrutiny of the television ratings ecosystem.
While channel-level rankings remain temporarily out of sight, the genre-level data suggests that when global tensions escalate, audiences continue to turn to television news for real-time updates.
